


Off the Charts

by penguinsledding



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguinsledding/pseuds/penguinsledding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of loosely connected AU drabbles in which Bennett and Topher get to be happy and together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Dollhouse, and OH BOY was that an incredibly depressing experience. I need some Bennett/Topher fluff in my life right now.

It feels like it happens all at once.

One second their eyes are locking over a fresh piece of tech, some silly thing he asked her to help with as an excuse to stare at her. The next thing he knows, they’re kissing. This time there are no _ow ow ows_. It’s all Bennett’s soft lips and smooth hair and beautiful, beautiful brain firing up as she rises and falls against him.

Before he knows it, they’re giggling and looking away. 

“I’ve never done this before,” he confesses. She laughs nervously and tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Neither have I.”

He lights up like an Active during an Imprint.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time they kiss, he’s reclining in his chair. He has a juice box in one hand and a pencil in the other. The pencil is tap-tap-tapping on the desk; the juice box is moving up towards his lips.

Bennett was just updating him on the newest project. This is wartime, after all, and he is not the general, but they are the intelligence behind the operations. Well, some of the operations. Bennett had turned out to be more willing to take down Rossum than he’d thought. It’s heartwarming, really. Charming, even if she does still want to kill Echo - er, the _Caroline_ part of Echo.

She’s just finished speaking when she leans toward him. He freezes, the tap-tap-tapping of his pencil stopping and his grin spreading. She smiles too and kisses him softly. Her lips just barely brush his own.

It’s so normal, so heart-stoppingly lovely, that Topher could cry. You know, if he were the kind of person who did that sort of thing.


	3. Chapter 3

He wants to give her both of his hands, to spend his whole life watching her work and doing whatever menial tasks she wants him to. He briefly wonders if this is how Ivy feels working under him, but he remembers her constant snark and decides probably not.

It’s just that Bennett is such a _genius_. For the first time in his life, he’s found someone with a brain that can challenge his own, and all he wants to do is admire it. Admire _her_. 

_Well,_ he thinks, watching the way she bites her lip as she works. _Maybe he’d like to do a little more too._


	4. Chapter 4

He lays her back on the bed carefully. Her arm is out of its telltale sling, and her hair is spread out across his pillows. They are both red, smiling so widely Topher feels like a Doll.

“Are you sure?” Topher asks. He’s fighting hard to resist the urge to cover his bare chest with his hands. It’s been so long since he’s seen sun, he’s surprised Bennett isn’t blinded. 

She smiles nervously as she nods, but as she pulls at his waistband, her smile turns wicked, _nefarious_ , like one of the naughty warrior girls in his sci-fi movies, like Bennett with a new weapon-like invention, and _god_ if she touches him like that again he’s going to-

_“Ooookay,”_ Topher yelps, yanking her hand out of his shorts before he loses it. “You are _definitely_ sure.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Oh man,” Topher said, running his hand through his mop of blonde hair. “Is this our first fight?”

“No,” Bennett said coolly. “I believe that would be when you struck me at our first meeting.”

_“Thaat…_ may be true,” he admitted. “But what about when I told you we were re-constructing Caroline? You were pissed!” 

Bennett ignored the pleased grin he wore as he reminisced and sank back into her desk chair. Her desk had been added to his office shortly after her arrival. It was cleaner than his, organized neatly and without his collection of toys.

“I hope you don’t think you can charm me into forgiving you,” she told him. “I’m still angry.”

“And you have every right to be!” he nodded, his hands fidgeting. “Because of the whole we’re fighting thing! But, uh, if you wouldn’t mind… could you just tell me when we’re done? Because I’m a peaceful guy, you know, despite the whole punching thing, and I’d-”

Bennett stayed silent.

“Oh, come on Bennie! Benny-bye! Benny-poo!”

He poked her sides as he spoke, hoping to make her serious face crack. She stayed firm.

“Fine,” he sighed. “We can carry the pouch juices instead of the boxes.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is in a slightly different continuity than the rest of the chapters. I still feel like I haven't dealt with the Caroline issue in this story, mostly because this was supposed to be about them being happy, but I'm going to find a time to do it eventually. After all, I love that crooked, betrayed side of Bennett, and I don't want to abandon it.
> 
> Also, I am aware this is a pretty unpopular ship and like half a person is reading this, but I appreciate you, half a person, for being as hung up on Bennett/Topher as I am.

Bennett doesn’t quite understand how to be in Safe Haven.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to. Topher is here, after all, even if he has slipped since their first meeting. Bennett loves him anyway. He’s just caught up on a few logical fallacies. He’s still convinced he ended the world.

The world, of course, is not ended. She is here, and he is here, and there is a whole planet around them. Humanity was headed down a crash course to their own destruction regardless; if they deserve to be saved, it is not because they were innocent. 

Still, Bennett has been working tirelessly, fighting endlessly to end it all. She doesn’t enjoy the death. Life is so precious, and this, all of this is a waste. She knows now she never should’ve kept working for Rossum after Caroline left her there. Just because one piece of data is faulty - because one aspect of the experiment was not what it seemed - didn’t mean she should’ve written off every other trial.

Besides, Topher needs this. He needs to feel like things are right again. Like he’s not the bad man anymore.

So she sits with him, helps him. She pushes his broken mind to make the discoveries she made an hour ago. Someday, somehow, they will fix this. Together.

When they do, when things are better, that’s when she’ll start to wonder about the guilt that claws at her at night.


	7. Chapter 7

Topher’s rifling through the drawers in Paul’s desk when he arrives, looking surprised.

“Topher? What are you doing here?”

He freezes as he turns. His hands slide the drawer shut behind him. He gives a nervous, twitchy grin and tries to look as normal as he can with half of his hair sticking up. 

“Nothing, man-friend! I’m just looking through these lovely drawers here, seeing what’s going on!” 

Paul raises an eyebrow at him and makes one of his rude comments, and Topher marvels at himself for managing to maintain his trademark holier-than-thou attitude even after half his brain died. He really is a genius.

“Ok, ok, you got me. I thought you might be a spy. Silly me! Better get going!”

“You didn’t think I was a spy,” Paul says as Topher tries to slip out of the room. “You made me. What were you really doing here?”

Topher suffers under his stare for about a moment before the confession comes spilling out of him.

“Well, I just thought… I thought that with you and Echo being all friendly again, I thought you may have a… _glove…_ for your man-reactions.”

Paul’s eyes bore into him.

“You came in here looking for a condom?”

Topher’s hands flew over his head.

“It’s not like I can be expected to keep one! I haven’t exactly been Mr. Get-Some all these years buried underground!”

Paul’s groan had become a familiar sound to Topher over the past months, but seeing him bury his head in his hands was new.

“Get out.” 

“Can do.”

Topher turned briskly on his heels, doing his best to avoid eye contact.

“And Topher?”

“Yeah?”

“Check wardrobe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all: Topher is totally a virgin. I'll fight you on this.
> 
> Secondly: You KNOW there are condoms in wardrobe, what with all the romantic engagements the Dolls are out on. You know it.


End file.
